How do barcodes work?
Whether it is about shopping or running a factory, barcodes
have simplified operations both for manufacturers and
consumers. Things have become a lot easier for both
parties at the operational level use of barcodes.
From books to cereal packets and other items, you may
have seen the black and white stripes called barcodes on
the surface of several items. As a result, you might wonder
how they accomplish the task for which they are intended.
Barcode labels manufacturers, such as Holoflex, use
barcodes to lend a helping hand to their clients in reading
product-related information. As an efficient means for this
purpose, it enables companies to interpret and verify large
chunks of data or information of goods within a shorter
notice. In general, it performs this task in a matter of just a
few minutes. Performing the same task by manual effort
would take several hours or even days.
As far as the working phenomenon of barcodes is
concerned, it happens according to the principle of physics.
It begins with an incandescent light bulb, the light of which
not only shines on the barcode pattern but also the surface
of the paper. Thereafter, it enters into the sensitive light
detector. Usually, companies use a light detector that is
super sensitive to capture precise reading.
This is precisely where the black and white stripes that you
see on a barcode comes to the fore. Black stripes absorb
light, whereas the white ones shine upon the detection of
light. Unlike the barcodes that were in use in the past,
modern-day barcodes are one-dimensional.
When the laser runs through the surface of the paper with
the barcode pattern, some part of it is absorbed. The
remaining part, which is not absorbed, shines, and
eventually gets reflected. It happens due to the difference
in the responses of the black and white stripes to laser light.
Thereafter, the scanner evaluates the amount of reflected
light. After interpretation, it converts the reflected light into
digits. It uses this number-based data to retrieve the
necessary information from a specific database.
Now you might wonder why a barcode only consists of
black and white stripes and not stripes of any other color.
The reason for it lies in the binary number system. A
computer device processes information in the form of
binary digits that primarily consists of two digits: 0 and 1.
While one of the stripes signify the former, the other one
implies the latter.